Sharing our stories

A couple of my Facebook friends shared the following video on their pages.  Please give it a look.

lifeasweknow.it

"Life As We Know It" (no, not the Katherine Heigl movie) looks like a it could be a very useful resource. I can already imagine a number of possibilities for it.  Chiefly, I would like to see how this would work in parts of congregational life.

Churches have several small groups, whether they're Sunday School classes, Bible study groups, prayer gatherings, choirs, committees, etc.  I bet each of these groups could benefit from sharing their stories with each other.  Just because some folks have sat in the same room with each other every Sunday since the flood doesn't necessarily mean they know a whole lot about each other.

There have been many a Sunday morning where I have seen the same people show up, sit in the same place and leave through the same door they entered.  Sometimes I wondered if they would change.  Other times I wondered if they would ever make the effort to get to know someone who sits across the sanctuary from them.  Wouldn't that be great?

I might try putting together several story sharing groups.  I think I'd hold something of an NFL draft to put specific people in their places (no pun intended--I think).  I wonder what stories and what relationships might come from getting people together whose only common ground might be that they could pick each other out of a lineup of possible members of the same congregation.

One message I am trying to push is the viability of the local story.  It is real.  It is significant, and it should not be dismissed as unimportant.  It must not be forgotten.  If we lose the story, we run the risk of ceasing to exist altogether.  Perhaps this curriculum (sorry, can't think of a better word) could be very helpful in collecting stories in a congregation.  It could spur further storytelling and story collecting, and before too long the oral history of a community is being shared, recorded and maybe even presented in celebration.

Here's one I'm definitely going to do one day.  I would love to lead intergenerational story sharing groups.  Sure, we disconnect across the aisles in church but even more so across the generations.  We can only blame ourselves.  We might have invented age segregation when we started sending everyone to their very own groups.  Granted, age-graded curriculum is a useful tool in faith development, but it cannot be the end-all/be-all of spiritual formation.  Let's add to it with conversation.  Get a teenager talking with a senior adult and a 30-something and see what shakes out.  I think it would contribute to better disciple making, helping establish bonds between believers which could bless them to share the story of faith because they will know how to share their story.

Of course, there are many ways "Life As We Know It" or something similar could prove useful.  What would you do to help people share their stories?  And hey, if you can add the Katherine Heigl movie to the discussion, you deserve extra points.